Editor's note: Welcome to SI's MLB preview. Click here to view every team's outlook in 2020, including predictions, projections and, yes, a preview of the 2030 preview. Click here to read the Red Sox fantasy preview.
If there’s a pattern to the 21st-century Red Sox, it’s that titles follow turmoil. The team was sold in 2002, turned over its front office, then won the World Series in both ’04 and ’07. General manager Theo Epstein left in ’11 (the year of the “chicken and beer” team) and the Sox won the ’13 Series under Ben Cherington.